Retailers implicated in LuxLeaks

Another 35 companies “stigmatized”

There have been a series of revelations in the LuxLeaks case, which talks about extremely elaborate “secret” tax deals between multinationals and the Luxembourg treasury to help them evade taxes in their own country.

This leak includes some well-known companies from our industry, like internet giants eBay and Skype, Hutchinson Whompoa (which owns chains like ICI Paris XL and Kruidvat), Colony Capital (Carrefour’s main shareholder), Black & Decker, Walt Disney and Reckitt Benckiser (which owns Vanish, Calgon, Clearasil and Airwick).

Second revelation since November

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists had already unveiled a list of 340 multinationals, like PepsiCo, Ikea, Amazon and Procter & Gamble, and wealthy families at the beginning of November.

Luxembourg received a lot of backlash in the revelation’s wake as these (legal) constructions are deemed to be highly immoral. On top of that, its ‘secret’ nature was also considered to be unfair competition towards those who were not able to set up these deals.

The new revelations show that the tax evasion schemes in Luxembourg were on a never-before-seen worldwide scale and have been going on for more than 10 years. It remains to be seen what the consequences (if any) will be for the companies implicated in the matter.